Indepth analysis PER vs. Salary

Okay, this isn't really that indepth and my analysis isn't that great, but sometimes it's fun to think about bang for your buck!

Assumptions: This is obviously not the be all and end all of value analysis. PER is only 1 stat (and offensive heavy). This is just one way to determine value, and this is more an intellectual exercise than me trying to play gm or basketball guru.

As the psychic hotline likes to remind us "For entertainment purposes only."

I wish I knew how to do a nice table, but I don't so I'll keep it simple... if anyone wants my full spreadsheet send me a msg and i'll email it to you. Basically, the Salary/Per tells you how many PER points the player is producing for every 100,000 he is making.

Column headings...
1) Player name and position
2) Current PER
3) This year's Salary/this year's PER
4) Average of 3 year salary/ this year's PER
5) Rank of players this year salary/this year PER
5) Rank of players 3 year average salary/ this year PER

EDIT: I am very sorry about how this table looks... when editing it the columns line up so it is somewhat legible... umm yeah... #epicfail

At a glance we notice that for both this year and 3 year the top 6-7 spots are held by guys on 1 year deals or on rookie contracts. It's until the 7-8th spot where we get our first non-rookie on a multi-year deal... Aaron Gray, who makes less than 3 million a year.

Here's what I found interesting...

Demar: if you evaluate his production vs. what he's making this year (less than 4 mill) He's fifth, beating out JV at sixth who is the only other guy who gets more than 15 minutes and could be considered as part of our CORE. However, if you average out his 3 year salary he drops from 5th to 10th. Basically, he isn't worth what we are going to pay him based on what he's currently doing, and all that "hard work" he's putting in NEEDS translate into better production next season.

Lowry: More production per dollar than any other player getting major minutes. Beating out Amir Johnson who I assumed would be the leader. In your opinion who gives better bang for your buck Lowry, or Amir?

Linas Vs. Landry: Kleiza is averaging 18.8 minutes/game vs. Fields 21.1 and earning 4.6 mill vs. 5.0 mill, Landry is providing more production per dollar THIS YEAR vs. Kleiza, but if they both provide the same production over the next year, Kleiza is providing more value. That scares me. A lot.

Rudy Gay & Andrea Bargnani: Gay provides even LESS value than bargs in terms of PER vs. Salary, and is worst on the team if you don't include Sebass (which i don't). I'm not saying I'm against Rudy, or that he's less valuable than bargnani but that is also cause for concern. PREDICTION if the raps don't put up a fight in the post season next year the fan base will turn on Gay.

"We only have one rule on this team. What is that rule? E.L.E. That's right's, E.L.E, and what does E.L.E. stand for? EVERYBODY LOVE EVERYBODY. Right there up on the wall, because this isn't just a basketball team, this is a lifestyle. ~ Jackie Moon

"We only have one rule on this team. What is that rule? E.L.E. That's right's, E.L.E, and what does E.L.E. stand for? EVERYBODY LOVE EVERYBODY. Right there up on the wall, because this isn't just a basketball team, this is a lifestyle. ~ Jackie Moon

Column headings...
1) Player name and position
2) Current PER
3) This year's Salary/this year's PER
4) Average of 3 year salary/ this year's PER
5) Rank of players this year salary/this year PER
5) Rank of players 3 year average salary/ this year PER

I don't think one can accurately breakdown PER/$ in the way you've done it. The stat isn't a linear measurement of production (like for example WP) rather its more like a ranking.

There is a sort of 'range' on PER where its extremely difficult to exceed (around 22 PER I believe) and drop below (5 PER I believe). So there are increasing returns as a players PER goes up and diminishing returns as it goes down. A straight PER/$ won't reflect that unfortunately.

For instance. A perfectly average player is 15 PER and approx $5 mil. - Lebron James is 31.5 PER and approx 18 mil

So an average player provides 3.3 PER/mil. Lebron James 1.75 PER/mil (This despite Lebron putting up one of the 10 greatest PERs in history)

A 'max money player' needs to reach approx. 45+ PER to = and average player. Thats an impossible number to achieve.

What you'd likely have to do is find fair value for each ranking of PER and then calculate how far away each Raptor is.

So, purely guessing, if 15 PER = 5 mil.

Each PER between 15 and 20 = 1 mil. Each PER between 20-25 = 2 mil. Each PER 25+ = 3 mil

Each PER between 15-10 = -0.5 mil. Each PER between 10- 5 = -0.25 mil. Each PER 5- = worthless.

"We only have one rule on this team. What is that rule? E.L.E. That's right's, E.L.E, and what does E.L.E. stand for? EVERYBODY LOVE EVERYBODY. Right there up on the wall, because this isn't just a basketball team, this is a lifestyle. ~ Jackie Moon

"We only have one rule on this team. What is that rule? E.L.E. That's right's, E.L.E, and what does E.L.E. stand for? EVERYBODY LOVE EVERYBODY. Right there up on the wall, because this isn't just a basketball team, this is a lifestyle. ~ Jackie Moon

"We only have one rule on this team. What is that rule? E.L.E. That's right's, E.L.E, and what does E.L.E. stand for? EVERYBODY LOVE EVERYBODY. Right there up on the wall, because this isn't just a basketball team, this is a lifestyle. ~ Jackie Moon

"We only have one rule on this team. What is that rule? E.L.E. That's right's, E.L.E, and what does E.L.E. stand for? EVERYBODY LOVE EVERYBODY. Right there up on the wall, because this isn't just a basketball team, this is a lifestyle. ~ Jackie Moon

Nice efforts. If you're doing an analysis on what value/production you are getting for the salary paid, then one thing that should be accounted for is minutes. So for example: Player A (bench guy) is putting up a PER of 20, and playing 12MPG. Player B has the same PER (20), but playing 36MPG. Obviously, Player B is more valuable because you are getting more of that 20PER each game. So, you could consider normalizing the production by multiplying by player MPG and dividing by 48MPG (game length).